Difficult Quotes - Page 24

• It is difficult to whistle and drink at the same time.

  Plautus

  Drink

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• It is easy to overthrow a government but very difficult to build a new one.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Government, Easy

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• True wisdom, indeed, springs from the wide brain which is fed from the deep heart; and it is only when age warms its withering conceptions at the memory of its youthful fire, when it makes experience serve aspiration, and knowledge illumine the difficult paths through which thoughts thread their way into facts,--it is only then that age becomes broadly and nobly wise.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Wise, Memories, Spring

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.2

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• There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Character, Men, Judging

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.5

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• It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Errors, Habit

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.13

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• High culture always isolates, always drives men out of their class, and makes it more difficult for them to share naturally and easily the common class-life around them. They seek the few companions who can understand them, and when these are not to be had within a traversable distance, they sit and work alone.

  Philip Gilbert Hamerton

  Distance, Men, Class

  Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1873). “The Intellectual Life: With a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, etched by Leopold Flameng”, p.328

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• To give awkwardly is churlishness. The most difficult part is to give, then why not add a smile?

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Generosity, Giving, Add

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• If this life is unhappy, it is a burden to us, which it is difficult to bear; if it is in every respect happy, it is dreadful to be deprived of it; so that in either case the result is the same, for we must exist in anxiety and apprehension.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Life, Anxiety, Unhappy

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• It is very difficult to pass from pleasure to work. Accordingly more poems have been swallowed up by sorrow than ever happiness caused to blaze forth in unparalleled radiance.

  Honore de Balzac

  Poetry, Sorrow, Radiance

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• True lovers know how trifling a thing is money yet how difficult to blend with love!

  Honore de Balzac

  Love, Money, Trifling

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• According to man's environment, society has made as many different types of men as there are varieties in zoology. The differences between a soldier, a workman, a statesman, a tradesman, a sailor, a poet, a pauper and a priest, are more difficult to seize, but quite considerable as the differences between a wolf, a lion, an ass, a crow, a sea-calf, a sheep, and so on.

  Honore de Balzac

  Men, Sheep, Sea

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• How far does one combine resistance to over-control with social justice, i.e. tolerable living for people in general? We are too selfish to be trusted, if left free, to give away enough to make people comfortable enough to give them a chance. Yet if all this is ordered for us, as to some extent it has to be, it so soon leads to tyranny. It is a very difficult problem. If only human beings had more pity, unselfishness, and justice and didn't need coercion to treat each other decently.

  Rose Macaulay

  Selfish, Compassion, Giving

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• Genius, with all its pride in its own strength, is but a dependent quality, and cannot put forth its whole powers nor claim all its honors without an amount of aid from the talents and labors of others which it is difficult to calculate.

  William C. Bryant

  Pride, Honor, Quality

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• It is difficult to live with the pure. They do not condemn you; they forgive you. This forgiveness is more terrible than a judgment.

  Anais Nin

  Perfection, Forgiving, Innocence

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• I find that life, day by day, is composed of at least one joy, one problem and one sorrow. Then there are the smaller ingredients: you always learn something, whether useful or harmful - that is difficult to analyze until later; you always give something; you alwayou always grow a little in one direction or another.

  Anais Nin

  One Direction, Giving, Joy

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• If I have something I want to say that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I will write it in a book for children.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Children, Book, Writing

  Twitter post from Jun 11, 2012

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• What a man is lies as certainly upon his countenance as in his heart, though none of his acquaintances may be able to read it. The very intercourse with him may have rendered it more difficult.

  George MacDonald

  Lying, Heart, Men

  George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.5088, e-artnow

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• Eye contact is a method utilised by a single woman to communicate to a man that she is interested in him. Many women find it difficult to look a man directly in the eyes, not because of shyness, but because a woman's eyes are not located in her chest.

  Rita Rudner

  Eye, Men, Looks

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• It is difficult to get rid of people when you once have given them too much pleasure.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  People, Too Much, Hospitality

  Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (2009). “The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 1845-1846”, p.9, The Floating Press

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• Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity, for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation.

  George Canning

  Party, Exercise, Practice

  George Canning (1842). “Select Speeches of the Right Honourable George Canning: With a Preliminary Biographical Sketch, and an Appendix, of Extracts from His Writings and Speeches”, p.533

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• Occasionally, once a speaker is on his feet, it is difficult to get him to sit down. ... If and when he returns to earth, he notices half of the room is paging the other half and a few are playing with the melted candles.

  Erma Bombeck

  Ifs And, Feet, Half

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• It is difficult to single out one sport over another, but if I have to name one in my separation suit, it will undoubtedly be football.

  Erma Bombeck

  Sports, Football, Names

  Erma Bombeck, Bil Keane (2011). “Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!”, p.112, Fawcett

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• While every human being has a capacity for love, its realization is one of the most difficult achievements.

  Erich Fromm

  Love, Achievement, Realization

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics”, p.104, Open Road Media

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• Intimacy is a difficult art.

  Virginia Woolf

  Art, Intimacy

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “The Common Reader”, p.331, Lulu Press, Inc

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• To read a novel is a difficult and complex art.

  Virginia Woolf

  Art, Reading, Novel

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “The Common Reader”, p.375, Lulu Press, Inc

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